


For Want of an Eric

by MickyRC



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (or a distinct lack thereof), Carrot Cake as a Minor Plot Point, Comedy, Footnotes, Gen, Hellish Bureaucracy, Oh Yuck! There's Demons in My Zine (Good Omens), She/Her Pronouns for Dagon (Good Omens), St James's Park (Good Omens), disposable demon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:08:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26275414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MickyRC/pseuds/MickyRC
Summary: Somebody(cough Hastur cough)has incinerated all of Hell’s disposable demons before they can regenerate. Which means somebody else has to do their work. Which means Dagon has to spend a beautiful afternoon on(eurgh)Earth.Absolutely no one is happy about this. Not Crowley, not Dagon, and certainly not the Erics.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36
Collections: Oh Yuck! There's Demons In My Zine!





	For Want of an Eric

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Oh Yuck! There’s Demons In My Zine! zine, which has just lifted the exclusivity period, so I finally get to share this with you all!

Dagon stared up at the sky and sniffed. The day promised drizzly grey rain and thorough cloud cover. She was counting on it. It had been seven centuries since she’d had to suffer sunshine, and she wasn’t planning to just because Crowley couldn’t be bothered to deliver his reports himself.

This wasn’t even supposed to be her job. This was Eric work, report collection; Dagon wasn’t meant to come up to Earth for another ten, twenty years. Not until Armageddon came around. But _someone_ had to go and incapacitate _all_ of the Disposables, and that left Dagon to do all the work.

And so, there she was, on a horrifically busy London street trying to figure out where this Saint James’s park was and how to get there without getting run over. Last time she’d been up, there’d been none of this motor vehicle nonsense[1]. Those were Heaven’s fault, she was sure, even if the paperwork said Crowley was responsible. Even he wasn’t _that_ good.

Then again, he also wasn’t the dumbass who incinerated so many Disposables in a day they had to wait for them to start regenerating again. That honor fell to Hastur.

“It’s not my fault!” he had whined from behind a muck covered desk when they figured it out and confronted him. “They’re not supposed to run out!”

They really weren’t, but even renewable resources don’t last if they’re used up too quickly. It had fallen to Dagon to call down to the lower floors and ask how soon they’d be back. It had also fallen to Dagon to inform Lord Beelzebub that they’d be without their usual assistants and punching bags for at least a week. And because dealing with an irate Prince of Hell all out of demons to incinerate wasn’t enough for one day, it had also fallen to Dagon to get done all the work in her department the Erics usually did.

Dagon didn’t like it when things fell to her.

But fall to her they did, much like a horde of angels falling from the heavens: all at once, made of poor decision making, and involving rather a lot of screaming.

“Damn it,” she muttered, glaring a very clear threat up at the sky and stalking out onto the street. The sooner this was over with, the better.

It took about twenty minutes to reach the park from The Office Building. Would’ve been closer to ten, but Dagon got distracted on the Underground. Despite officially being one of Hell’s inventions, she’d never actually been on public transport before. The wonder of seeing it in action brought a few tears to her eyes.

As did the sun as soon as she stepped out of the station.

“Augh!” she sputtered, slapping both clawed hands across her face. “Noooooo. I was promised gloom, for Satan’s sake!” Dagon _hated_ sunlight. Her eyes were meant for deep sea gloom, not sunshine, and the light stung like sulfur[2].

But despite her protests, the sun kept on shining horrifically. All she managed to do was frighten a few nearby humans, which, nothing to scoff at there, but it didn’t do anything to help her eyes. Maybe this was why Crowley always wore those idiotic sunglasses.

Dismissing getting her own pair on the grounds that Crowley would be absolutely unbearable if he thought she was matching him[3], Dagon grit her teeth and stalked out towards the park.

Saint James’s was exactly as she expected: horrible. Everywhere she turned, there were humans. Running across the grass, meandering along the pathways, buying ice creams at cute little carts and generally being disgusting. She immediately decided she wanted to get out as soon as physically possible. There weren’t even enough trees for a good old fashioned Satanic ritual.

It didn’t take long to find the spot where Crowley had said he’d hand over the reports. The lake was only so big, after all, and there were only so many benches near it. Dagon spotted the one third farthest to the East and beelined to the nearest tree. She wasn’t going to go back Downstairs without getting in some lurking first. And the shade would help her eyes.

Shockingly, Crowley was late. Unfortunately for Dagon, sloth was one of theirs, so she couldn’t even write him up for it.

Wrath was also one of theirs, though, and a little passive aggression goes a long way among coworkers, demonic or otherwise. After a quick scan for obnoxious red hair in the crowd, Dagon turned her back on the meeting spot and headed for the nearest snack kiosk.

“What can I get for you?” the unfortunate young adult manning the register asked when Dagon pushed to the front of the queue. Dagon made sure to hem and haw for an acceptable length of time before ordering a coffee as black as her lord and master’s soul and a piece of carrot cake.

The cashier only sighed and handed over her change.

Dagon gulped down the coffee before she got out of the way of the kiosk’s queue, then nudged the paper cup so it filled right back up again, this time with a splash of milk. No need to suffer for something no one had to know about, hmm?

The bench was still irritatingly empty when she got back, but her feet were starting to hurt from all the walking, so Dagon decided to change tactics and sprawled herself out across the bench. When Crowley finally showed up, he could stand and explain himself while she lounged in comfort.

Coffee gone again, and _still_ no sign of the stupid snake, Dagon opened up the pastry bag. She didn’t actually know what carrot cake was, but it sounded like the sort of “health” food a demon was supposed to encourage. It turned out to be sugary and moist, and you couldn’t even taste the carrot. Dagon was thrilled. Something about it reminded her of home. The spices, maybe, those were very earthy[4]. She was licking the greasy frosting off her fingers and contemplating another slice when she saw it. Red hair at three o’clock.

Dagon adjusted her sprawl, making sure there wasn’t an inch of room left on the bench, and renewed her coffee again. Unfortunately, the way she was positioned, the late afternoon sun was sinking right into her line of sight. It took several minutes before she realized that not only was Crowley not heading towards her, he was going completely the other way.

Oh, this had better be good.

She couldn’t _see_ though. And if she got up to investigate what the Heaven that idiot demon was doing, somebody else would steal the bench, and all of her hard sprawling work would be lost. So Dagon squinted angrily down the path as, a few benches away, Crowley sat down and started to chat with someone. Someone who wasn’t Dagon. Someone he probably hadn’t even been late for[5].

“Satan, I hate him,” Dagon muttered and sipped threateningly from her to-go cup. “Puffed up, self-important, pompous little snake.” Damn, she wanted another piece of that cake. Maybe she should fill out a claims form for it. Get it in the canteen Downstairs.

She hadn’t nearly run out of grumbles or dreams of demonic carrot cake by the time Crowley swaggered up to stand in front of her. “Dagon!” he said, sounding slightly choked and tapping one heel rapidly against the gravel. “This is a surprise.”

Dagon did the polite thing and sneered at him. “Not my decision.” She ignored Crowley’s apparent anxiety and stuck out a hand rudely. “Reports.”

“Right! Yeah, ‘course, my reports…” Crowley tugged a thick packet of paper from a jeans pocket too snug to fit all of his fingers. “All good—er, no, bad! Everything’s going very very bad up here! No need to worry about me, all one hundred percent under control. Got it handled, me.” He hesitated. “What, uh. What happened to Eric?”

Dagon’s eyebrow merged with her hairline. “Which one?”

“...fair point.”

Dagon rolled her eyes. “You’re damn lucky I couldn’t see who you were meeting with over there,” she threatened as she stood up and brushed cake crumbs off her lap. “I don’t like being second in line.”

Crowley squeaked, and very deliberately did not look towards his other bench and his other meeting.

“Mind yourself.” Dagon gave him a sharp poke to the chest before she turned around and stomped off. Back towards the Underground, back towards the Office, back towards home.

She should probably do something to investigate Crowley’s little secret. Then again, it was going to take her a month to get through everything in his novel of a report; probably a better use of her energy to find that old canteen requisition form and secure carrot cake as a win for Hell.

**Footnotes:**

1There had been a lot more horse nonsense, but that was all Ligur’s fault, every bit of it.[return to text]

2That was, incidentally, why half of the lights in Hell didn’t work. All the requisitions had to go through Dagon, and she liked things dim.[return to text]

3as evidenced by the Ruff Incident of 1601[return to text]

4Not Earthy, of course. More that there was a vague similarity with digging your toes into damp dirt. That earthy.[return to text]

5Someone who may or may not have been slightly more Heavenly than either of them.[return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> You can come yell with me on tumblr [over here!](https://one-with-the-floor.tumblr.com/)


End file.
